FLIBS 2016: New Greenline owner reintroduces the brand

Vladimir Zinchenko is the CEO of SVP Yachts, of Slovenia, which has restarted the Greenline brand of diesel/electric hybrid boats.

FORT LAUDERDALE — Greenline is back.

The new owner of the European boat company, which builds diesel-electric power cruisers, came to the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show with five boats ranging from 33 to 40 feet, including its new 36-footer (the Greenline 36 Hybrid).

“This is our first North American boat show and the reception has been very good,” Vladimir Zinchenko, owner and CEO of the new company SVP Yachts, told Trade Only Today in a sit-down interview at the show. “People are much more comfortable with hybrid technology today. They love the environmentally friendly aspect and the idea behind Greenline.”

That idea is to power these full-deckhouse cruisers with diesel/electric propulsion, giving the owners the ability to glide silently through the water without polluting.

The new 36-footer’s electric engine can propel the boat to about 6.5 knots, and the single 370-hp Yanmar diesel gives the two-cabin vessel a top speed of 25 knots. The standard engine is a 220-hp Volvo Penta diesel.

“Many of our customers will be boaters who are retired and appreciate not just the destination, but the journey,” said Zinchenko, 53, who was a Greenline dealer under the former owner, Seaway of Slovenia. (The new company is also located in Slovenia.)

In May of this year Zinchenko’s new company began buying all of Seaway’s assets, and by the end of June it had acquired all of the facilities, brands and molds and the rights to produce and sell Greenline boats, said Ilya Berezin, the company’s marketing and dealer relations director.

The Greenline 36 Hybrid is the company's first build.

The company has restarted the production of models under the previous ownership — the Greenline 33, 40 and 48 — and is working on the next generation of Greenlines with the 36 and 44. Zinchenko expects the 44 to be introduced in January 2018.

In the United States the company opened a distribution headquarters in Florida that will import and sell the boat throughout the country, said Berezin.

Zinchenko’s goal at the show was not only to reintroduce the boats to the North American consumer, but also to recruit a network of selling agents, or brokers, he said.

“I want to have no fewer than 50 [brokers] in the United States,” he said.

Greenline has sold four boats since it relaunched the brand — one 48 in California, two 40s in Florida and one 40 in Rhode Island, Zinchenko said. (The company also acquired the Seaway brands Shipman sailing yachts and Ocean Class, larger motoryachts, said Zinchenko.)

Stressing quality control, the new company will build fewer boats annually — just under 100 — compared with the previous owners, said Zinchenko. And the new boats under diesel power will be faster, with a cruise speed in the low 20-knot range, he said.

“The 36 is a completely new design that gives you the option of a fast cruise,” he said.